Lead-acid batteries are a common source of electrical energy and are often used as automotive batteries, marine batteries, consumer equipment batteries, industrial batteries, and in other applications. Among other components, lead-acid batteries include numerous plates that are assembled in a case and that are made of lead alloy grids with an electrochemically active battery paste material applied on the grids. In mass production the grids are usually formed in an elongate continuous strip of a plurality of individual grids connected or formed together. The grid strip is fed through a pasting machine where the battery paste material is applied to the strip of grids. Downstream of the application of the paste the pasted grids are cut or separated into individual pasted plates.
Even though in the manufacture of a continuous strip of grids, each grid is intended to be of the same longitudinal length, portions of the strip will often be somewhat stretched and thus the longitudinal length of the grids may vary somewhat throughout the length of the grid strip. Moreover, even if and when the grids of the continuous strip are of the same longitudinal length, prior art cutting machines typically do not register precisely with the intended locations at which the pasted grids of the strip are cut into individual plates. In at least some of these cutting machines and systems, the longitudinal length or misalignment may vary as much as plus or minus 0.04 of an inch from their intended longitudinal length which results in some individual plates being as much as 0.08 of an inch longer than other plates cut from the same continuous strip of pasted grids. This variation in the longitudinal length of individual plates presents problems in the assembly of a plurality of the plates into the case of a lead-acid battery and may even degrade the performance of and shorten the useful life in service of a battery. This misalignment will decrease the width of a portion of the perimeter frame (typically a side) of a pasted plate thereby increasing the likelihood of a shortened battery life due to the effects of corrosion of the lead grid of such a battery plate.